SB 1247

The dairy/immigration branch now has a more concrete candidate-vote comparison. Idaho Dairymen's Association publicly opposed E-Verify legislation absent major changes/guest-worker reform and its Spring 2026 PAC materials endorsed a slate that included Ben Fuhriman, Rick Cheatum, Dan Garner, Lori McCann, Stephanie Mickelsen, Rod Furniss and Jim Guthrie. On the House vote for SB 1247, an Idaho E-Verify Act, Fuhriman, Cheatum, Garner, McCann and Mickelsen voted no, while Furniss voted yes. Guthrie, in the Senate, voted yes. Thus several Dairy PAC-endorsed Republican lawmakers took the same direction as the association's stated opposition to mandatory E-Verify, but at least two other endorsed lawmakers voted the opposite way. This is stronger than simple donor/candidate overlap because it connects a documented industry policy interest to actual votes by multiple endorsed officeholders; however, the mixed votes are significant counterevidence against inferring that the Dairy PAC controlled its endorsees or selected them solely for immigration/labor policy. The Idaho GOP State Central Committee had separately called for all-employer E-Verify legislation, so the no votes by Fuhriman, Cheatum, Garner, McCann and Mickelsen are issue-specific divergences from that stated party position. The next step is to compare the same endorsed candidate set across labor, water, agriculture, school choice and tax issues to see whether support tracks a broader industry-interest pattern rather than one immigration vote.